: To be sure he will require science, and, if I am not
mistaken, the very greatest of all sciences.

STRANGER: How are we to call it? By Zeus, have we not lighted
unwittingly upon our free and noble science, and in looking for the
Sophist have we not entertained the philosopher unawares?

THEAETETUS: What do you mean?

STRANGER: Should we not say that the division according to classes,
which neither makes the same other, nor makes other the same, is the
business of the dialectical science?

THEAETETUS: That is what we should say.

STRANGER: Then, surely, he who can divide rightly is able to see clearly
one form pervading a scattered multitude, and many different forms
contained under one higher form; and again, one form knit together into
a single whole and pervading many such wholes, and many forms, existing
only in separation and isolation. This is the knowledge of classes which
determines where they can have communion with one another and where not.

THEAETETUS: Quite true.

STRANGER: And the art of dialectic would be attributed by you only to
the philosopher pure and true?

THEAETETUS: Who but he can be worthy?

STRANGER: In this region we shall always discover the philosopher, if we
look for him; like the Sophist, he is not easily discovered, but for a
different reason.

THEAETETUS: For what reason?

STRANGER: Because the Sophist runs away into the darkness of not-being,
in which he has learned by habit to feel about, and cannot be discovered
because of the darkness of the place. Is not that true?

THEAETETUS: It seems to be so.

STRANGER: And the philosopher, always holding converse through reason
with the idea of being, is also dark from excess of light; for the souls
of the many have no eye which can endure the vision of the divine.

THEAETETUS: Yes; that seems to be quite as true as the other.

STRANGER: Well, the philosopher may hereafter be more fully considered
by us, if we are disposed; but the Sophist must clearly not be allowed
to escape until we have had a good look at him.

THEAETETUS: Very good.

STRANGER: Since, then, we are agreed that some classes have a communion
with one another, and others not, and some have communion with a few and
others with many, and that there is no reason why some should not have
universal communion with all, let us now pursue the enquiry, as the
argument suggests, not in relation to all ideas, lest the multitude
of them should confuse us, but let us se